Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR) is an infectious viral disease of ruminants including goats, sheep and cattle. Since PPR was first described in western Africa in 1942, it has become widely distributed in areas from south-Saharan desert regions in Africa and Middle east countries to southwest Asia, including Bangladesh.
Clinical signs include severe erosions in the mouth and lips, difficulty in breathing and diarrhea. Most deaths in affected animals result from severe diarrhea. PPR is one of the OIE list A diseases internationally and one of the obligatory notifiable animal diseases in Korea, because of its huge economic damage to the livestock industry of the countries in which it has occurred with very high morbidity and mortality in susceptible hosts. PPR is regarded as a foreign animal disease in Korea, since there has been no outbreak report so far.
Therefore, rapid detection by a rapid diagnostic test and destruction of PPR infected animals is very important to minimize the economic impact on the live stock industry.
PPR can be diagnosed by detection of viral antigen (antigen detection method) and by detection of antibodies from the infected animals (antibody detection method).
With regard to antigen detection methods; virus isolation and identification, reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), and antigen detection ELISA have been applied, using tissue samples, pathological samples from mouth lesions and faeces from infected dead animals. However, these methods should be carried out in BL3 (biosafety level 3) laboratories.
As for antibody detection methods; virus neutralization test and ELISA have been applied for PPR diagnosis. The diagnostic method using ELISA can be performed general laboratories, whereas the virus neutralization test must be performed BL3 laboratories. For PPR diagnosis, inactivated viral particles, recombinant hemagglutinin(H) proteins or recombinant N proteins have been used for antigens in prior ELISA assays, and at least 3 hours has been required to perform the assays.